TO MR. JAY.Paris, September 26, 1786.Sir,—The last letters I had the honor of writing you were of the 11th and 13th of August. Since that, I have been favored with yours of July 14th and August the 13th. I now enclose you such letters on the Barclay negotiations as have come to hand since my last. With these, is the copy of a joint letter from Mr. Adams and myself to Mr. Lambe. In mine of August 13th, I mentioned that I had proposed it as a subject of consideration to Mr. Adams, whether the mission of Mr. Barclay to Algiers might answer any good purpose. He is of opinion that it could not. I have, therefore, informed Mr. Barclay, who by this time, is probably in Spain, that he is at liberty to return to this place, to London or America, as he shall think proper. You will perceive by the letter from Mr. Carmichael, that it is the opinion of the Counts de Florida Blanca and D'Expilly, that atreaty with the Ottoman Porte is necessary before one can be made with Algiers. Such a treaty will require presents, not indeed as the price of the peace, but such as are usually made in compliment to their ministers. But as it would be ineffectual towards opening to us the Mediterranean until a peace with Algiers can be obtained, there seems to be no reason for pressing it till there is a prospect of settlement with the Algerines.Since the death of the King of Prussia, the symptoms of war between the Porte and the Russians and Venetians have become stronger. I think it is the opinion of this court, however, that there will be no war shortly on the Continent. I judge this as well from other information as from the circumstance of a late reduction of their land force. All their military preparations seems to be against a naval war. Nevertheless, their treaty with England has lately taken a sudden start. Declarations have been exchanged between the negotiators in the nature of preliminaries to a definitive treaty. The particulars of these declarations are not yet certainly known.I was lately asked by the Imperial ambassador whether I had received an answer on the subject of the proposition to our powers to treat with his sovereign. A discrimination which they understand to have been made in America between the subjects of powers having treaties with us and those having none, seems to be the motive of their pressing this matter.It being known that M. de Calonne, the Minister of Finance, is at his wits' end to raise supplies for the ensuing year, a proposition has been made him by a Dutch company to purchase the debt of the United States to this country for seventy millions of livres in hand. His necessities dispose him to accede to the proposition; but a hesitation is produced by the apprehension, that it might lessen our credit in Europe, and perhaps be disagreeable to Congress. I have been consulted here only by the agent for that company. I informed him that I could not judge what effect it might have on our credit, and was not authorized either to approve or disapprove of the transaction. I have since reflected on this subject. If there be a danger that our paymentsmay not be punctual, it might be better that the discontents which would thence arise should be transferred from a court, of whose good will we have so much need, to the breasts of a private company. But it has occurred to me, that we might find occasion to do what would be grateful to this court, and establish with them a confidence in our honor. I am informed that our credit in Holland is sound. Might it not be possible, then, to borrow the four-and-twenty millions due to this country, and thus pay them their whole debt at once? This would save them from any loss on our account. Is it liable to the objection of impropriety in creating new debts before we have more certain means of paying them? It is only transferring from one creditor to another, and removing the causes of discontent to persons with whom they would do us less injury. Thinking that this matter is worthy of the attention of Congress, I will endeavor that the negotiation shall be retarded till it may be possible for me to know their decision, which, therefore, I will take the liberty of praying immediately.You will have heard, before this comes to hand, that the parties in the United Netherlands have come to an open rupture. How far it will proceed, cannot now be foreseen. I send you herewith the gazettes of France and Leyden to this date, and have the honor of being, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
Paris, September 26, 1786.
Sir,—The last letters I had the honor of writing you were of the 11th and 13th of August. Since that, I have been favored with yours of July 14th and August the 13th. I now enclose you such letters on the Barclay negotiations as have come to hand since my last. With these, is the copy of a joint letter from Mr. Adams and myself to Mr. Lambe. In mine of August 13th, I mentioned that I had proposed it as a subject of consideration to Mr. Adams, whether the mission of Mr. Barclay to Algiers might answer any good purpose. He is of opinion that it could not. I have, therefore, informed Mr. Barclay, who by this time, is probably in Spain, that he is at liberty to return to this place, to London or America, as he shall think proper. You will perceive by the letter from Mr. Carmichael, that it is the opinion of the Counts de Florida Blanca and D'Expilly, that atreaty with the Ottoman Porte is necessary before one can be made with Algiers. Such a treaty will require presents, not indeed as the price of the peace, but such as are usually made in compliment to their ministers. But as it would be ineffectual towards opening to us the Mediterranean until a peace with Algiers can be obtained, there seems to be no reason for pressing it till there is a prospect of settlement with the Algerines.
Since the death of the King of Prussia, the symptoms of war between the Porte and the Russians and Venetians have become stronger. I think it is the opinion of this court, however, that there will be no war shortly on the Continent. I judge this as well from other information as from the circumstance of a late reduction of their land force. All their military preparations seems to be against a naval war. Nevertheless, their treaty with England has lately taken a sudden start. Declarations have been exchanged between the negotiators in the nature of preliminaries to a definitive treaty. The particulars of these declarations are not yet certainly known.
I was lately asked by the Imperial ambassador whether I had received an answer on the subject of the proposition to our powers to treat with his sovereign. A discrimination which they understand to have been made in America between the subjects of powers having treaties with us and those having none, seems to be the motive of their pressing this matter.
It being known that M. de Calonne, the Minister of Finance, is at his wits' end to raise supplies for the ensuing year, a proposition has been made him by a Dutch company to purchase the debt of the United States to this country for seventy millions of livres in hand. His necessities dispose him to accede to the proposition; but a hesitation is produced by the apprehension, that it might lessen our credit in Europe, and perhaps be disagreeable to Congress. I have been consulted here only by the agent for that company. I informed him that I could not judge what effect it might have on our credit, and was not authorized either to approve or disapprove of the transaction. I have since reflected on this subject. If there be a danger that our paymentsmay not be punctual, it might be better that the discontents which would thence arise should be transferred from a court, of whose good will we have so much need, to the breasts of a private company. But it has occurred to me, that we might find occasion to do what would be grateful to this court, and establish with them a confidence in our honor. I am informed that our credit in Holland is sound. Might it not be possible, then, to borrow the four-and-twenty millions due to this country, and thus pay them their whole debt at once? This would save them from any loss on our account. Is it liable to the objection of impropriety in creating new debts before we have more certain means of paying them? It is only transferring from one creditor to another, and removing the causes of discontent to persons with whom they would do us less injury. Thinking that this matter is worthy of the attention of Congress, I will endeavor that the negotiation shall be retarded till it may be possible for me to know their decision, which, therefore, I will take the liberty of praying immediately.
You will have heard, before this comes to hand, that the parties in the United Netherlands have come to an open rupture. How far it will proceed, cannot now be foreseen. I send you herewith the gazettes of France and Leyden to this date, and have the honor of being, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO THE PREVOT DES MARCHANDS ET ECHEVINS DE PARIS.Paris, September 27, 1786.Gentlemen,—The commonwealth of Virginia, in gratitude for the services of Major General the Marquis de La Fayette, have determined to erect his bust in their capital. Desirous to place a like monument of his worth, and of their sense of it, in the country to which they are indebted for his birth, they have hoped that the city of Paris will consent to become the depositoryof this second testimony of their gratitude. Being charged by them with the execution of their wishes, I have the honor to solicit of Messieurs le Prevot des Marchands et Echevins, on behalf of the city, their acceptance of a bust of this gallant officer, and that they will be pleased to place it where, doing most honor to him, it will most gratify the feelings of an allied nation.It is with true pleasure that I obey the call of that commonwealth, to render just homage to a character so great in its first developments, that they would honor the close of any other. Their country, covered by a small army against a great one, their exhausted means supplied by his talents, their enemies finally forced to that spot whither their allies and confederates were collecting to receive them, and a war which had spread its miseries into the four quarters of the earth, thus reduced to a single point, where one blow should terminate it, and through the whole, an implicit respect paid to the laws of the land; these are facts which would illustrate any character, and which fully justify the warmth of those feelings, of which I have the honor on this occasion to be the organ.It would have been more pleasing to me to have executed this office in person, to have mingled the tribute of private gratitude with that of my country, and, at the same time, to have had an opportunity of presenting to your honorable body, the homage of that profound respect which I have the honor to bear them. But I am withheld from these grateful duties by the consequences of a fall, which confine me to my room. Mr. Short, therefore, a citizen of the State of Virginia, and heretofore a member of its Council of State, will have the honor of delivering you this letter, together with the resolution of the General Assembly of Virginia. He will have that, also, of presenting the bust at such time and place, as you will be so good as to signify your pleasure to receive it. Through him, I beg to be allowed the honor of presenting those sentiments of profound respect and veneration, with which I am, Gentlemen, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
Paris, September 27, 1786.
Gentlemen,—The commonwealth of Virginia, in gratitude for the services of Major General the Marquis de La Fayette, have determined to erect his bust in their capital. Desirous to place a like monument of his worth, and of their sense of it, in the country to which they are indebted for his birth, they have hoped that the city of Paris will consent to become the depositoryof this second testimony of their gratitude. Being charged by them with the execution of their wishes, I have the honor to solicit of Messieurs le Prevot des Marchands et Echevins, on behalf of the city, their acceptance of a bust of this gallant officer, and that they will be pleased to place it where, doing most honor to him, it will most gratify the feelings of an allied nation.
It is with true pleasure that I obey the call of that commonwealth, to render just homage to a character so great in its first developments, that they would honor the close of any other. Their country, covered by a small army against a great one, their exhausted means supplied by his talents, their enemies finally forced to that spot whither their allies and confederates were collecting to receive them, and a war which had spread its miseries into the four quarters of the earth, thus reduced to a single point, where one blow should terminate it, and through the whole, an implicit respect paid to the laws of the land; these are facts which would illustrate any character, and which fully justify the warmth of those feelings, of which I have the honor on this occasion to be the organ.
It would have been more pleasing to me to have executed this office in person, to have mingled the tribute of private gratitude with that of my country, and, at the same time, to have had an opportunity of presenting to your honorable body, the homage of that profound respect which I have the honor to bear them. But I am withheld from these grateful duties by the consequences of a fall, which confine me to my room. Mr. Short, therefore, a citizen of the State of Virginia, and heretofore a member of its Council of State, will have the honor of delivering you this letter, together with the resolution of the General Assembly of Virginia. He will have that, also, of presenting the bust at such time and place, as you will be so good as to signify your pleasure to receive it. Through him, I beg to be allowed the honor of presenting those sentiments of profound respect and veneration, with which I am, Gentlemen, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO BARON DE STAEL.fSir,—I have the honor of communicating to your Excellency the copy of a treaty of amity and commerce concluded between the United States of America and his late Majesty the King of Prussia, in the two languages in which it was written, each of which was agreed to be equally original. The exchange of ratifications we made but little before the death of the King. This circumstance, with the delays which have attended the printing and transmitting the copies of the treaty to me, have prevented my making an earlier communication of it to your Excellency, as a mark of the confidence and the respect we bear to the nation whom you so worthily represent here, and with which we have the honor of being allied.I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect respect and esteem, your Excellency's most obedient, and most humble servant.
fSir,—I have the honor of communicating to your Excellency the copy of a treaty of amity and commerce concluded between the United States of America and his late Majesty the King of Prussia, in the two languages in which it was written, each of which was agreed to be equally original. The exchange of ratifications we made but little before the death of the King. This circumstance, with the delays which have attended the printing and transmitting the copies of the treaty to me, have prevented my making an earlier communication of it to your Excellency, as a mark of the confidence and the respect we bear to the nation whom you so worthily represent here, and with which we have the honor of being allied.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect respect and esteem, your Excellency's most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO MRS. COSWAY.Paris, October 26, 1786.My Dear Madam,—Having performed the last sad office of handing you into your carriage, at the pavillon de St. Denis, and seen the wheels get actually into motion, I turned on my heel and walked, more dead than alive, to the opposite door, where my own was awaiting me. Mr. Danquerville was missing. He was sought for, found, and dragged down stairs. We were crammed into the carriage, like recruits for the Bastille, and not having soul enough to give orders to the coachman, he presumed Paris our destination, and drove off. After a considerable interval, silence was broke, with a "Je suis vraiment afflige du depart de ces bons gens." This was a signal for a mutual confession of distress. We began immediately to talk of Mr. and Mrs. Cosway, of their goodness, their talents, their amiability; and, though we spoke of nothing else, we seemed hardlyto have entered into the matter, when the coachman announced the rue St. Denis, and that we were opposite Mr. Danquerville's. He insisted on descending there, and traversing a short passage to his lodgings. I was carried home. Seated by my fireside, solitary and sad, the following dialogue took place between my Head and my Heart.Head.Well, friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim.Heart.I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings. Overwhelmed with grief, every fibre of my frame distended beyond its natural powers to bear, I would willingly meet whatever catastrophe should leave me no more to feel, or to fear.Head.These are the eternal consequences of your warmth and precipitation. This is one of the scrapes into which you are ever leading us. You confess your follies, indeed; but still you hug and cherish them; and no reformation can be hoped where there is no repentance.Heart.Oh, my friend! this is no moment to upbraid my foibles. I am rent into fragments by the force of my grief! If you have any balm, pour it into my wounds; if none, do not harrow them by new torments. Spare me in this awful moment! At any other, I will attend with patience to your admonitions.Head.On the contrary, I never found that the moment of triumph, with you, was the moment of attention to my admonitions. While suffering under your follies, you may perhaps be made sensible of them, but the paroxysm over, you fancy it can never return. Harsh, therefore, as the medicine may be, it is my office to administer it. You will be pleased to remember, that when our friend Trumbull used to be telling us of the merits and talents of these good people, I never ceased whispering to you that we had no occasion for new acquaintances; that the greater their merits and talents, the more dangerous their friendship to our tranquillity, because the regret at parting would be greater.Heart.Accordingly, Sir, this acquaintance was not the consequence of my doings. It was one of your projects, which threw us in the way of it. It was you, remember, and not I, who desired the meeting at Legrand and Motinos. I nevertrouble myself with domes nor arches. The Halle aux bleds might have rotted down, before I should have gone to see it. But you, forsooth, who are eternally getting us to sleep with your diagrams and crotchets, must go and examine this wonderful piece of architecture; and when you had seen it, oh! it was the most superb thing on earth! What you had seen there was worth all you had yet seen in Paris! I thought so too. But I meant it of the lady and gentleman to whom we had been presented; and not of a parcel of sticks and chips put together in pens. You, then, Sir, and not I, have been the cause of the present distress.Head.It would have been happy for you if my diagrams and crotchets had gotten you to sleep on that day, as you are pleased to say they eternally do. My visit to Legrand and Motinos had public utility for its object. A market is to be built in Richmond. What a commodious plan is that of Legrand and Motinos; especially, if we put on it the noble dome of the Halle aux bleds. If such a bridge as they showed us can be thrown across the Schuylkill, at Philadelphia, the floating bridges taken up, and the navigation of that river opened, what a copious resource will be added, of wood and provisions, to warm and feed the poor of that city? While I was occupied with these objects, you were dilating with your new acquaintances, and contriving how to prevent a separation from them. Every soul of you had an engagement for the day. Yet all these were to be sacrificed, that you might dine together. Lying messengers were to be despatched into every quarter of the city, with apologies for your breach of engagement. You, particularly, had the effrontery to send word to the Dutchess Danville, that on the moment we were setting out to dine with her, despatches came to hand, which required immediate attention. You wanted me to invent a more ingenious excuse; but I knew you were getting into a scrape, and I would have nothing to do with it. Well; after dinner to St. Cloud, from St. Cloud to Ruggieri's, from Ruggieri's to Krumfoltz; and if the day had been as long as a Lapland summer day, you would still have contrived means among you to have filled it.Heart.Oh! my dear friend, how you have revived me by recalling to my mind the transactions of that day! How well I remember them all, and that, when I came home at night, and looked back to the morning, it seemed to have been a month agone. Go on, then, like a kind comforter, and paint to me the day we went to St. Germains. How beautiful was every object! the Port de Reuilly, the hills along the Seine, the rainbows of the machine of Marly, the terrace of St. Germains, the chateaux, the gardens, the statues of Marly, the pavillon of Lucienne. Recollect, too, Madrid, Bagatelle, the King's garden, the Dessert. How grand the idea excited by the remains of such a column. The spiral staircase, too, was beautiful. Every moment was filled with something agreeable. The wheels of time moved on with a rapidity, of which those of our carriage gave but a faint idea. And yet, in the evening, when one took a retrospect of the day, what a mass of happiness had we travelled over! Retrace all those scenes to me, my good companion, and I will forgive the unkindness with which you were chiding me. The day we went to St. Germains was a little too warm, I think; was it not?Head.Thou art the most incorrigible of all the beings that ever sinned! I reminded you of the follies of the first day, intending to deduce from thence some useful lessons for you; but instead of listening to them, you kindle at the recollection, you retrace the whole series with a fondness, which shows you want nothing, but the opportunity, to act it over again. I often told you, during its course, that you were imprudently engaging your affections, under circumstances that must have cost you a great deal of pain; that the persons, indeed, were of the greatest merit, possessing good sense, good humor, honest hearts, honest manners, and eminence in a lovely art; that the lady had, moreover, qualities and accomplishments belonging to her sex, which might form a chapter apart for her; such as music, modesty, beauty, and that softness of disposition, which is the ornament of her sex and charm of ours; but that all these considerations would increase the pang of separation; that their stay here was to beshort; that you rack our whole system when you are parted from those you love, complaining that such a separation is worse than death, inasmuch as this ends our sufferings, whereas that only begins them; and that the separation would, in this instance, be the more severe, as you would probably never see them again.Heart.But they told me they would come back again, the next year.Head.But, in the meantime, see what you suffer; and their return, too, depends on so many circumstances, that if you had a grain of prudence, you would not count upon it. Upon the whole, it is improbable, and therefore you should abandon the idea of ever seeing them again.Heart.May heaven abandon me if I do!Head.Very well. Suppose, then, they come back. They are to stay two months, and, when these are expired, what is to follow? Perhaps you flatter yourself they may come to America?Heart.God only knows what is to happen. I see nothing impossible in that supposition; and I see things wonderfully contrived sometimes, to make us happy. Where could they find such objects as in America, for the exercise of their enchanting art? especially the lady, who paints landscapes so inimitably. She wants only subjects worthy of immortality, to render her pencil immortal. The Falling Spring, the Cascade of Niagara, the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Mountains, the Natural Bridge; it is worth a voyage across the Atlantic to see these objects; much more to paint, and make them, and thereby ourselves, known to all ages. And our own dear Monticello; where has nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye? mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. With what majesty do we there ride above the storms! How sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet! and the glorious sun when rising as if out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains, and giving life to all nature! I hope in God, no circumstance may ever make either seek an asylum from grief!With what sincere sympathy I would open every cell of my composition, to receive the effusion of their woes! I would pour my tears into their wounds; and if a drop of balm could be found on the top of the Cordilleras, or at the remotest sources of the Missouri, I would go thither myself to seek and to bring it. Deeply practised in the school of affliction, the human heart knows no joy which I have not lost, no sorrow of which I have not drunk! Fortune can present no grief of unknown form to me! Who, then, can so softly bind up the wound of another, as he who has felt the same wound himself? But heaven forbid they should ever know a sorrow! Let us turn over another leaf, for this has distracted me.Head.Well. Let us put this possibility to trial then, on another point. When you consider the character which is given of our country, by the lying newspapers of London, and their credulous copiers in other countries; when you reflect that all Europe is made to believe we are a lawless banditti, in a state of absolute anarchy, cutting one another's throats, and plundering without distinction, how could you expect that any reasonable creature would venture among us?Heart.But you and I know that all this is false: that there is not a country on earth, where there is greater tranquillity; where the laws are milder, or better obeyed; where every one is more attentive to his own business, or meddles less with that of others; where strangers are better received, more hospitably treated, and with a more sacred respect.Head.True, you and I know this, but your friends do not know it.Heart.But they are sensible people, who think for themselves. They will ask of impartial foreigners, who have been among us, whether they saw or heard on the spot, any instance of anarchy. They will judge, too, that a people, occupied as we are, in opening rivers, digging navigable canals, making roads, building public schools, establishing academies, erecting busts and statues to our great men, protecting religious freedom, abolishing sanguinary punishments, reforming and improvingour laws in general; they will judge, I say, for themselves, whether these are not the occupations of a people at their ease; whether this is not better evidence of our true state, than a London newspaper, hired to lie, and from which no truth can ever be extracted but by reversing everything it says.Head.I did not begin this lecture, my friend, with a view to learn from you what America is doing. Let us return, then, to our point. I wish to make you sensible how imprudent it is to place your affections, without reserve, on objects you must so soon lose, and whose loss, when it comes, must cost you such severe pangs. Remember the last night. You knew your friends were to leave Paris to-day. This was enough to throw you into agonies. All night you tossed us from one side of the bed to the other; no sleep, no rest. The poor crippled wrist, too, never left one moment in the same position; now up, now down, now here, now there; was it to be wondered at, if its pains returned? The surgeon then was to be called, and to be rated as an ignoramus, because he could not divine the cause of this extraordinary change. In fine, my friend, you must mend your manners. This is not a world to live at random in, as you do. To avoid those eternal distresses, to which you are forever exposing us, you must learn to look forward, before you take a step which may interest our peace. Everything in this world is matter of calculation. Advance then with caution, the balance in your hand. Put into one scale the pleasures which any object may offer; but put fairly into the other, the pains which are to follow, and see which preponderates. The making an acquaintance, is not a matter of indifference. When a new one is proposed to you, view it all round. Consider what advantages it presents, and to what inconveniences it may expose you. Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it. The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset. Pleasure is always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after that, this arrests us. The most effectual means of being secure against pain, is to retirewithin ourselves, and to suffice for our own happiness. Those which depend on ourselves, are the only pleasures a wise man will count on: for nothing is ours, which another may deprive us of. Hence the inestimable value of intellectual pleasures. Ever in our power, always leading us to something new, never cloying, we ride serene and sublime above the concerns of this mortal world, contemplating truth and nature, matter and motion, the laws which bind up their existence, and that Eternal Being who made and bound them up by those laws. Let this be our employ. Leave the bustle and tumult of society to those who have not talents to occupy themselves without them. Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another? Is there so little gall poured into our cup, that we must need help to drink that of our neighbor? A friend dies, or leaves us: we feel as if a limb was cut off. He is sick: we must watch over him, and participate of his pains. His fortune is shipwrecked: ours must be laid under contribution. He loses a child, a parent, or a partner: we must mourn the loss as if it were our own.Heart.And what more sublime delight than to mingle tears with one whom the hand of heaven hath smitten! to watch over the bed of sickness, and to beguile its tedious and its painful moments! to share our bread with one to whom misfortune has left none! This world abounds indeed with misery; to lighten its burthen, we must divide it with one another. But let us now try the virtue of your mathematical balance, and as you have put into one scale the burthens of friendship, let me put its comforts into the other. When languishing then under disease, how grateful is the solace of our friends! how are we penetrated with their assiduities and attentions! how much are we supported by their encouragements and kind offices! When heaven has taken from us some object of our love, how sweet is it to have a bosom whereon to recline our heads, and into which we may pour the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is almost aluxury! In a life, where we are perpetually exposed to want and accident, yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves, to retire from all aid, and to wrap ourselves in the mantle of self-sufficiency! For, assuredly, nobody will care for him who cares for nobody. But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these, indeed, the sun shone brightly. How gay did the face of nature appear! Hills, valleys, chateaux, gardens, rivers, every object wore its liveliest hue! Whence did they borrow it? From the presence of our charming companion. They were pleasing, because she seemed pleased. Alone, the scene would have been dull and insipid: the participation of it with her gave it relish. Let the gloomy monk, sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness, while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! Their supreme wisdom is supreme folly; and they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their lives, which you have been vaunting in such elevated terms. Believe me, then, my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic which could estimate friendship at nothing, or at less than nothing. Respect for you has induced me to enter into this discussion, and to hear principles uttered which I detest and abjure. Respect for myself now obliges me to recall you into the proper limits of your office. When nature assigned us the same habitation, she gave us over it a divided empire. To you, she allotted the field of science; to me, that of morals. When the circle is to be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced; when the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance, is to be investigated, take up the problem; it is yours; nature has given me no cognizance of it. In like manner, in denying to you the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, of justice, of love, of friendship, she has excluded youfrom their control. To these, she has adapted the mechanism of the heart. Morals were too essential to the happiness of man, to be risked on the uncertain combinations of the head. She laid their foundation, therefore, in sentiment, not in science. That she gave to all, as necessary to all; this to a few only, as sufficing with a few. I know, indeed, that you pretend authority to the sovereign control of our conduct, in all its parts; and a respect for your grave saws and maxims, a desire to do what is right, has sometimes induced me to conform to your counsels. A few facts, however, which I can readily recall to your memory, will suffice to prove to you, that nature has not organized you for our moral direction. When the poor, wearied soldier whom we overtook at Chickahomony, with his pack on his back, begged us to let him get up behind our chariot, you began to calculate that the road was full of soldiers, and that if all should be taken up, our horses would fail in their journey. We drove on therefore. But, soon becoming sensible you had made me do wrong, that, though we cannot relieve all the distressed, we should relieve as many as we can, I turned about to take up the soldier; but he had entered a bye-path, and was no more to be found; and from that moment to this, I could never find him out, to ask his forgiveness. Again, when the poor woman came to ask a charity in Philadelphia, you whispered that she looked like a drunkard, and that half a dollar was enough to give her for the ale-house. Those who want the dispositions to give, easily find reasons why they ought not to give. When I sought her out afterwards, and did what I should have done at first, you know that she employed the money immediately towards placing her child at school. If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's. You began to calculate, and to compare wealth and numbers: we threw up a few pulsations of our blood; we supplied enthusiasm against wealth and numbers; we put our existence to the hazard, when the hazard seemed against us, and we saved our country: justifying, at thesame time, the ways of Providence, whose precept is, to do always what is right, and leave the issue to him. In short, my friend, as far as my recollection serves me, I do not know that I ever did a good thing on your suggestion, or a dirty one without it. I do forever, then, disclaim your interference in my province. Fill paper as you please with triangles and squares: try how many ways you can hang and combine them together. I shall never envy nor control your sublime delights. But leave me to decide, when and where friendships are to be contracted. You say, I contract them at random. So you said the woman at Philadelphia was a drunkard. I receive none into my esteem, till I know they are worthy of it. Wealth, title, office, are no recommendations to my friendship. On the contrary, great good qualities are requisite to make amends for their having wealth, title, and office. You confess, that, in the present case, I could not have made a worthier choice. You only object, that I was so soon to lose them. We are not immortal ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence; and we must acquiesce. It is the condition annexed to all our pleasures, not by us who receive, but by him who gives them. True, this condition is pressing cruelly on me at this moment. I feel more fit for death than life. But, when I look back on the pleasures of which it is the consequence, I am conscious they were worth the price I am paying. Notwithstanding your endeavors, too, to damp my hopes, I comfort myself with expectations of their promised return. Hope is sweeter than despair; and they were too good to mean to deceive me. "In the summer," said the gentleman; but "in the spring," said the lady; and I should love her forever, were it only for that! Know, then, my friend, that I have taken these good people into my bosom; that I have lodged them in the warmest cell I could find; that I love them, and will continue to love them through life; that if fortune should dispose them on one side the globe, and me on the other, my affections shall pervade its whole mass to reach them. Knowing then my determination,attempt not to disturb it. If you can, at any time, furnish matter for their amusement, it will be the office of a good neighbor to do it. I will, in like manner, seize any occasion which may offer, to do the like good turn for you with Condorcet, Rittenhouse, Madison, La Cretelle, or any other of those worthy sons of science, whom you so justly prize.I thought this a favorable proposition whereon to rest the issue of the dialogue. So I put an end to it by calling for my nightcap. Methinks, I hear you wish to heaven I had called a little sooner, and so spared you the ennui of such a sermon. I did not interrupt them sooner, because I was in a mood for hearing sermons. You too were the subject; and on such a thesis, I never think the theme long; not even if I am to write it, and that slowly and awkwardly, as now, with the left hand. But, that you may not be discouraged from a correspondence which begins so formidably, I will promise you, on my honor, that my future letters shall be of a reasonable length. I will even agree to express but half my esteem for you, for fear of cloying you with too full a dose. But, on your part, no curtailing. If your letters are as long as the Bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brimful of affection. I shall read them with the dispositions with which Arlequin, inLes deux billets, spelt the words "je t'aime," and wished that the whole alphabet had entered into their composition.We have had incessant rains since your departure. These make me fear for your health, as well as that you had an uncomfortable journey. The same cause has prevented me from being able to give you any account of your friends here. This voyage to Fontainebleau will probably send the Count de Moutier and the Marquis de Brehan, to America. Danquerville promised to visit me, but has not done it as yet. De la Tude comes sometimes to take family soup with me, and entertains me with anecdotes of his five and thirty years' imprisonment. How fertile is the mind of man, which can make the Bastile and dungeon of Vincennes yield interesting anecdotes! You know this was for making four verses on Madame de Pompadour. But I think you told me youdid not know the verses. They were these: "Sans esprit, sans sentiment, Sans etre belle, ni neuve, En France on peut avoir le premier amant: Pompadour en est l'epreuve." I have read the memoir of his three escapes. As to myself, my health is good, except my wrist which mends slowly, and my mind which mends not at all, but broods constantly over your departure. The lateness of the season obliges me to decline my journey into the south of France. Present me in the most friendly terms to Mr. Cosway, and receive me into your own recollection with a partiality and warmth, proportioned not to my own poor merit, but to the sentiments of sincere affection and esteem, with which I have the honor to be, my dear Madam, your most obedient humble servant.
Paris, October 26, 1786.
My Dear Madam,—Having performed the last sad office of handing you into your carriage, at the pavillon de St. Denis, and seen the wheels get actually into motion, I turned on my heel and walked, more dead than alive, to the opposite door, where my own was awaiting me. Mr. Danquerville was missing. He was sought for, found, and dragged down stairs. We were crammed into the carriage, like recruits for the Bastille, and not having soul enough to give orders to the coachman, he presumed Paris our destination, and drove off. After a considerable interval, silence was broke, with a "Je suis vraiment afflige du depart de ces bons gens." This was a signal for a mutual confession of distress. We began immediately to talk of Mr. and Mrs. Cosway, of their goodness, their talents, their amiability; and, though we spoke of nothing else, we seemed hardlyto have entered into the matter, when the coachman announced the rue St. Denis, and that we were opposite Mr. Danquerville's. He insisted on descending there, and traversing a short passage to his lodgings. I was carried home. Seated by my fireside, solitary and sad, the following dialogue took place between my Head and my Heart.
Head.Well, friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim.
Heart.I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings. Overwhelmed with grief, every fibre of my frame distended beyond its natural powers to bear, I would willingly meet whatever catastrophe should leave me no more to feel, or to fear.
Head.These are the eternal consequences of your warmth and precipitation. This is one of the scrapes into which you are ever leading us. You confess your follies, indeed; but still you hug and cherish them; and no reformation can be hoped where there is no repentance.
Heart.Oh, my friend! this is no moment to upbraid my foibles. I am rent into fragments by the force of my grief! If you have any balm, pour it into my wounds; if none, do not harrow them by new torments. Spare me in this awful moment! At any other, I will attend with patience to your admonitions.
Head.On the contrary, I never found that the moment of triumph, with you, was the moment of attention to my admonitions. While suffering under your follies, you may perhaps be made sensible of them, but the paroxysm over, you fancy it can never return. Harsh, therefore, as the medicine may be, it is my office to administer it. You will be pleased to remember, that when our friend Trumbull used to be telling us of the merits and talents of these good people, I never ceased whispering to you that we had no occasion for new acquaintances; that the greater their merits and talents, the more dangerous their friendship to our tranquillity, because the regret at parting would be greater.
Heart.Accordingly, Sir, this acquaintance was not the consequence of my doings. It was one of your projects, which threw us in the way of it. It was you, remember, and not I, who desired the meeting at Legrand and Motinos. I nevertrouble myself with domes nor arches. The Halle aux bleds might have rotted down, before I should have gone to see it. But you, forsooth, who are eternally getting us to sleep with your diagrams and crotchets, must go and examine this wonderful piece of architecture; and when you had seen it, oh! it was the most superb thing on earth! What you had seen there was worth all you had yet seen in Paris! I thought so too. But I meant it of the lady and gentleman to whom we had been presented; and not of a parcel of sticks and chips put together in pens. You, then, Sir, and not I, have been the cause of the present distress.
Head.It would have been happy for you if my diagrams and crotchets had gotten you to sleep on that day, as you are pleased to say they eternally do. My visit to Legrand and Motinos had public utility for its object. A market is to be built in Richmond. What a commodious plan is that of Legrand and Motinos; especially, if we put on it the noble dome of the Halle aux bleds. If such a bridge as they showed us can be thrown across the Schuylkill, at Philadelphia, the floating bridges taken up, and the navigation of that river opened, what a copious resource will be added, of wood and provisions, to warm and feed the poor of that city? While I was occupied with these objects, you were dilating with your new acquaintances, and contriving how to prevent a separation from them. Every soul of you had an engagement for the day. Yet all these were to be sacrificed, that you might dine together. Lying messengers were to be despatched into every quarter of the city, with apologies for your breach of engagement. You, particularly, had the effrontery to send word to the Dutchess Danville, that on the moment we were setting out to dine with her, despatches came to hand, which required immediate attention. You wanted me to invent a more ingenious excuse; but I knew you were getting into a scrape, and I would have nothing to do with it. Well; after dinner to St. Cloud, from St. Cloud to Ruggieri's, from Ruggieri's to Krumfoltz; and if the day had been as long as a Lapland summer day, you would still have contrived means among you to have filled it.
Heart.Oh! my dear friend, how you have revived me by recalling to my mind the transactions of that day! How well I remember them all, and that, when I came home at night, and looked back to the morning, it seemed to have been a month agone. Go on, then, like a kind comforter, and paint to me the day we went to St. Germains. How beautiful was every object! the Port de Reuilly, the hills along the Seine, the rainbows of the machine of Marly, the terrace of St. Germains, the chateaux, the gardens, the statues of Marly, the pavillon of Lucienne. Recollect, too, Madrid, Bagatelle, the King's garden, the Dessert. How grand the idea excited by the remains of such a column. The spiral staircase, too, was beautiful. Every moment was filled with something agreeable. The wheels of time moved on with a rapidity, of which those of our carriage gave but a faint idea. And yet, in the evening, when one took a retrospect of the day, what a mass of happiness had we travelled over! Retrace all those scenes to me, my good companion, and I will forgive the unkindness with which you were chiding me. The day we went to St. Germains was a little too warm, I think; was it not?
Head.Thou art the most incorrigible of all the beings that ever sinned! I reminded you of the follies of the first day, intending to deduce from thence some useful lessons for you; but instead of listening to them, you kindle at the recollection, you retrace the whole series with a fondness, which shows you want nothing, but the opportunity, to act it over again. I often told you, during its course, that you were imprudently engaging your affections, under circumstances that must have cost you a great deal of pain; that the persons, indeed, were of the greatest merit, possessing good sense, good humor, honest hearts, honest manners, and eminence in a lovely art; that the lady had, moreover, qualities and accomplishments belonging to her sex, which might form a chapter apart for her; such as music, modesty, beauty, and that softness of disposition, which is the ornament of her sex and charm of ours; but that all these considerations would increase the pang of separation; that their stay here was to beshort; that you rack our whole system when you are parted from those you love, complaining that such a separation is worse than death, inasmuch as this ends our sufferings, whereas that only begins them; and that the separation would, in this instance, be the more severe, as you would probably never see them again.
Heart.But they told me they would come back again, the next year.
Head.But, in the meantime, see what you suffer; and their return, too, depends on so many circumstances, that if you had a grain of prudence, you would not count upon it. Upon the whole, it is improbable, and therefore you should abandon the idea of ever seeing them again.
Heart.May heaven abandon me if I do!
Head.Very well. Suppose, then, they come back. They are to stay two months, and, when these are expired, what is to follow? Perhaps you flatter yourself they may come to America?
Heart.God only knows what is to happen. I see nothing impossible in that supposition; and I see things wonderfully contrived sometimes, to make us happy. Where could they find such objects as in America, for the exercise of their enchanting art? especially the lady, who paints landscapes so inimitably. She wants only subjects worthy of immortality, to render her pencil immortal. The Falling Spring, the Cascade of Niagara, the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Mountains, the Natural Bridge; it is worth a voyage across the Atlantic to see these objects; much more to paint, and make them, and thereby ourselves, known to all ages. And our own dear Monticello; where has nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye? mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. With what majesty do we there ride above the storms! How sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at our feet! and the glorious sun when rising as if out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains, and giving life to all nature! I hope in God, no circumstance may ever make either seek an asylum from grief!With what sincere sympathy I would open every cell of my composition, to receive the effusion of their woes! I would pour my tears into their wounds; and if a drop of balm could be found on the top of the Cordilleras, or at the remotest sources of the Missouri, I would go thither myself to seek and to bring it. Deeply practised in the school of affliction, the human heart knows no joy which I have not lost, no sorrow of which I have not drunk! Fortune can present no grief of unknown form to me! Who, then, can so softly bind up the wound of another, as he who has felt the same wound himself? But heaven forbid they should ever know a sorrow! Let us turn over another leaf, for this has distracted me.
Head.Well. Let us put this possibility to trial then, on another point. When you consider the character which is given of our country, by the lying newspapers of London, and their credulous copiers in other countries; when you reflect that all Europe is made to believe we are a lawless banditti, in a state of absolute anarchy, cutting one another's throats, and plundering without distinction, how could you expect that any reasonable creature would venture among us?
Heart.But you and I know that all this is false: that there is not a country on earth, where there is greater tranquillity; where the laws are milder, or better obeyed; where every one is more attentive to his own business, or meddles less with that of others; where strangers are better received, more hospitably treated, and with a more sacred respect.
Head.True, you and I know this, but your friends do not know it.
Heart.But they are sensible people, who think for themselves. They will ask of impartial foreigners, who have been among us, whether they saw or heard on the spot, any instance of anarchy. They will judge, too, that a people, occupied as we are, in opening rivers, digging navigable canals, making roads, building public schools, establishing academies, erecting busts and statues to our great men, protecting religious freedom, abolishing sanguinary punishments, reforming and improvingour laws in general; they will judge, I say, for themselves, whether these are not the occupations of a people at their ease; whether this is not better evidence of our true state, than a London newspaper, hired to lie, and from which no truth can ever be extracted but by reversing everything it says.
Head.I did not begin this lecture, my friend, with a view to learn from you what America is doing. Let us return, then, to our point. I wish to make you sensible how imprudent it is to place your affections, without reserve, on objects you must so soon lose, and whose loss, when it comes, must cost you such severe pangs. Remember the last night. You knew your friends were to leave Paris to-day. This was enough to throw you into agonies. All night you tossed us from one side of the bed to the other; no sleep, no rest. The poor crippled wrist, too, never left one moment in the same position; now up, now down, now here, now there; was it to be wondered at, if its pains returned? The surgeon then was to be called, and to be rated as an ignoramus, because he could not divine the cause of this extraordinary change. In fine, my friend, you must mend your manners. This is not a world to live at random in, as you do. To avoid those eternal distresses, to which you are forever exposing us, you must learn to look forward, before you take a step which may interest our peace. Everything in this world is matter of calculation. Advance then with caution, the balance in your hand. Put into one scale the pleasures which any object may offer; but put fairly into the other, the pains which are to follow, and see which preponderates. The making an acquaintance, is not a matter of indifference. When a new one is proposed to you, view it all round. Consider what advantages it presents, and to what inconveniences it may expose you. Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it. The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset. Pleasure is always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after that, this arrests us. The most effectual means of being secure against pain, is to retirewithin ourselves, and to suffice for our own happiness. Those which depend on ourselves, are the only pleasures a wise man will count on: for nothing is ours, which another may deprive us of. Hence the inestimable value of intellectual pleasures. Ever in our power, always leading us to something new, never cloying, we ride serene and sublime above the concerns of this mortal world, contemplating truth and nature, matter and motion, the laws which bind up their existence, and that Eternal Being who made and bound them up by those laws. Let this be our employ. Leave the bustle and tumult of society to those who have not talents to occupy themselves without them. Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another? Is there so little gall poured into our cup, that we must need help to drink that of our neighbor? A friend dies, or leaves us: we feel as if a limb was cut off. He is sick: we must watch over him, and participate of his pains. His fortune is shipwrecked: ours must be laid under contribution. He loses a child, a parent, or a partner: we must mourn the loss as if it were our own.
Heart.And what more sublime delight than to mingle tears with one whom the hand of heaven hath smitten! to watch over the bed of sickness, and to beguile its tedious and its painful moments! to share our bread with one to whom misfortune has left none! This world abounds indeed with misery; to lighten its burthen, we must divide it with one another. But let us now try the virtue of your mathematical balance, and as you have put into one scale the burthens of friendship, let me put its comforts into the other. When languishing then under disease, how grateful is the solace of our friends! how are we penetrated with their assiduities and attentions! how much are we supported by their encouragements and kind offices! When heaven has taken from us some object of our love, how sweet is it to have a bosom whereon to recline our heads, and into which we may pour the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is almost aluxury! In a life, where we are perpetually exposed to want and accident, yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves, to retire from all aid, and to wrap ourselves in the mantle of self-sufficiency! For, assuredly, nobody will care for him who cares for nobody. But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have lately passed. On these, indeed, the sun shone brightly. How gay did the face of nature appear! Hills, valleys, chateaux, gardens, rivers, every object wore its liveliest hue! Whence did they borrow it? From the presence of our charming companion. They were pleasing, because she seemed pleased. Alone, the scene would have been dull and insipid: the participation of it with her gave it relish. Let the gloomy monk, sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the bottom of his cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness, while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! Their supreme wisdom is supreme folly; and they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their lives, which you have been vaunting in such elevated terms. Believe me, then, my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic which could estimate friendship at nothing, or at less than nothing. Respect for you has induced me to enter into this discussion, and to hear principles uttered which I detest and abjure. Respect for myself now obliges me to recall you into the proper limits of your office. When nature assigned us the same habitation, she gave us over it a divided empire. To you, she allotted the field of science; to me, that of morals. When the circle is to be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced; when the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance, is to be investigated, take up the problem; it is yours; nature has given me no cognizance of it. In like manner, in denying to you the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, of justice, of love, of friendship, she has excluded youfrom their control. To these, she has adapted the mechanism of the heart. Morals were too essential to the happiness of man, to be risked on the uncertain combinations of the head. She laid their foundation, therefore, in sentiment, not in science. That she gave to all, as necessary to all; this to a few only, as sufficing with a few. I know, indeed, that you pretend authority to the sovereign control of our conduct, in all its parts; and a respect for your grave saws and maxims, a desire to do what is right, has sometimes induced me to conform to your counsels. A few facts, however, which I can readily recall to your memory, will suffice to prove to you, that nature has not organized you for our moral direction. When the poor, wearied soldier whom we overtook at Chickahomony, with his pack on his back, begged us to let him get up behind our chariot, you began to calculate that the road was full of soldiers, and that if all should be taken up, our horses would fail in their journey. We drove on therefore. But, soon becoming sensible you had made me do wrong, that, though we cannot relieve all the distressed, we should relieve as many as we can, I turned about to take up the soldier; but he had entered a bye-path, and was no more to be found; and from that moment to this, I could never find him out, to ask his forgiveness. Again, when the poor woman came to ask a charity in Philadelphia, you whispered that she looked like a drunkard, and that half a dollar was enough to give her for the ale-house. Those who want the dispositions to give, easily find reasons why they ought not to give. When I sought her out afterwards, and did what I should have done at first, you know that she employed the money immediately towards placing her child at school. If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's. You began to calculate, and to compare wealth and numbers: we threw up a few pulsations of our blood; we supplied enthusiasm against wealth and numbers; we put our existence to the hazard, when the hazard seemed against us, and we saved our country: justifying, at thesame time, the ways of Providence, whose precept is, to do always what is right, and leave the issue to him. In short, my friend, as far as my recollection serves me, I do not know that I ever did a good thing on your suggestion, or a dirty one without it. I do forever, then, disclaim your interference in my province. Fill paper as you please with triangles and squares: try how many ways you can hang and combine them together. I shall never envy nor control your sublime delights. But leave me to decide, when and where friendships are to be contracted. You say, I contract them at random. So you said the woman at Philadelphia was a drunkard. I receive none into my esteem, till I know they are worthy of it. Wealth, title, office, are no recommendations to my friendship. On the contrary, great good qualities are requisite to make amends for their having wealth, title, and office. You confess, that, in the present case, I could not have made a worthier choice. You only object, that I was so soon to lose them. We are not immortal ourselves, my friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our existence; and we must acquiesce. It is the condition annexed to all our pleasures, not by us who receive, but by him who gives them. True, this condition is pressing cruelly on me at this moment. I feel more fit for death than life. But, when I look back on the pleasures of which it is the consequence, I am conscious they were worth the price I am paying. Notwithstanding your endeavors, too, to damp my hopes, I comfort myself with expectations of their promised return. Hope is sweeter than despair; and they were too good to mean to deceive me. "In the summer," said the gentleman; but "in the spring," said the lady; and I should love her forever, were it only for that! Know, then, my friend, that I have taken these good people into my bosom; that I have lodged them in the warmest cell I could find; that I love them, and will continue to love them through life; that if fortune should dispose them on one side the globe, and me on the other, my affections shall pervade its whole mass to reach them. Knowing then my determination,attempt not to disturb it. If you can, at any time, furnish matter for their amusement, it will be the office of a good neighbor to do it. I will, in like manner, seize any occasion which may offer, to do the like good turn for you with Condorcet, Rittenhouse, Madison, La Cretelle, or any other of those worthy sons of science, whom you so justly prize.
I thought this a favorable proposition whereon to rest the issue of the dialogue. So I put an end to it by calling for my nightcap. Methinks, I hear you wish to heaven I had called a little sooner, and so spared you the ennui of such a sermon. I did not interrupt them sooner, because I was in a mood for hearing sermons. You too were the subject; and on such a thesis, I never think the theme long; not even if I am to write it, and that slowly and awkwardly, as now, with the left hand. But, that you may not be discouraged from a correspondence which begins so formidably, I will promise you, on my honor, that my future letters shall be of a reasonable length. I will even agree to express but half my esteem for you, for fear of cloying you with too full a dose. But, on your part, no curtailing. If your letters are as long as the Bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brimful of affection. I shall read them with the dispositions with which Arlequin, inLes deux billets, spelt the words "je t'aime," and wished that the whole alphabet had entered into their composition.
We have had incessant rains since your departure. These make me fear for your health, as well as that you had an uncomfortable journey. The same cause has prevented me from being able to give you any account of your friends here. This voyage to Fontainebleau will probably send the Count de Moutier and the Marquis de Brehan, to America. Danquerville promised to visit me, but has not done it as yet. De la Tude comes sometimes to take family soup with me, and entertains me with anecdotes of his five and thirty years' imprisonment. How fertile is the mind of man, which can make the Bastile and dungeon of Vincennes yield interesting anecdotes! You know this was for making four verses on Madame de Pompadour. But I think you told me youdid not know the verses. They were these: "Sans esprit, sans sentiment, Sans etre belle, ni neuve, En France on peut avoir le premier amant: Pompadour en est l'epreuve." I have read the memoir of his three escapes. As to myself, my health is good, except my wrist which mends slowly, and my mind which mends not at all, but broods constantly over your departure. The lateness of the season obliges me to decline my journey into the south of France. Present me in the most friendly terms to Mr. Cosway, and receive me into your own recollection with a partiality and warmth, proportioned not to my own poor merit, but to the sentiments of sincere affection and esteem, with which I have the honor to be, my dear Madam, your most obedient humble servant.
TO MRS. COSWAY.Paris, October 13, 1786.My Dear Madam,—Just as I had sealed the enclosed, I received a letter of a good length, dated Antwerp, with your name at the bottom. I prepared myself for a feast. I read two or three sentences; looked again at the signature to see if I had not mistaken it. It was visibly yours. Read a sentence or two more. Diable! Spelt your name distinctly. There was not a letter of it omitted. Began to read again. In fine, after reading a little and examining the signature, alternately, half a dozen times, I found that your name was to four lines only, instead of four pages. I thank you for the four lines, however, because they prove you think of me; little, indeed, but better little than none. To show how much I think of you, I send you the enclosed letter of three sheets of paper, being a history of the evening I parted with you. But how expect you should read a letter of three mortal sheets of paper? I will tell you. Divide it into six doses of half a sheet each, and every day, when the toilette begins, take a dose, that is to say, read half a sheet. By this means, it will have the only merit its length and dulness can aspire to, that of assistingyourcoeffeuseto procure you six good naps of sleep. I will even allow you twelve days to get through it, holding you rigorously to one condition only, that is, that at whatever hour you receive this, you do not break the seal of the enclosed till the next toilette. Of this injunction I require a sacred execution. I rest it on your friendship, and that, in your first letter, you tell me honestly whether you have honestly performed it. I send you the song I promised. Bring me in return the subject,Jours heureux!Were I a songster, I should sing it all to these words: "Dans ces lieux qu'elle tarde a se rendre!" Learn it, I pray you, and sing it with feeling. My right hand presents itsdevoirsto you, and sees, with great indignation, the left supplanting it in a correspondence so much valued. You will know the first moment it can resume its rights. The first exercise of them shall be addressed to you, as you had the first essay of its rival. It will yet, however, be many a day. Present my esteem to Mr. Cosway, and believe me to be yours very affectionately.
Paris, October 13, 1786.
My Dear Madam,—Just as I had sealed the enclosed, I received a letter of a good length, dated Antwerp, with your name at the bottom. I prepared myself for a feast. I read two or three sentences; looked again at the signature to see if I had not mistaken it. It was visibly yours. Read a sentence or two more. Diable! Spelt your name distinctly. There was not a letter of it omitted. Began to read again. In fine, after reading a little and examining the signature, alternately, half a dozen times, I found that your name was to four lines only, instead of four pages. I thank you for the four lines, however, because they prove you think of me; little, indeed, but better little than none. To show how much I think of you, I send you the enclosed letter of three sheets of paper, being a history of the evening I parted with you. But how expect you should read a letter of three mortal sheets of paper? I will tell you. Divide it into six doses of half a sheet each, and every day, when the toilette begins, take a dose, that is to say, read half a sheet. By this means, it will have the only merit its length and dulness can aspire to, that of assistingyourcoeffeuseto procure you six good naps of sleep. I will even allow you twelve days to get through it, holding you rigorously to one condition only, that is, that at whatever hour you receive this, you do not break the seal of the enclosed till the next toilette. Of this injunction I require a sacred execution. I rest it on your friendship, and that, in your first letter, you tell me honestly whether you have honestly performed it. I send you the song I promised. Bring me in return the subject,Jours heureux!Were I a songster, I should sing it all to these words: "Dans ces lieux qu'elle tarde a se rendre!" Learn it, I pray you, and sing it with feeling. My right hand presents itsdevoirsto you, and sees, with great indignation, the left supplanting it in a correspondence so much valued. You will know the first moment it can resume its rights. The first exercise of them shall be addressed to you, as you had the first essay of its rival. It will yet, however, be many a day. Present my esteem to Mr. Cosway, and believe me to be yours very affectionately.
TO M. DE CORNY.Paris, October 20, 1786.Sir,—By the first conveyance which shall offer, I propose to report to the Governor of Virginia the manner in which the wish of the State, relative to the bust of the Marquis de La Fayette, has been carried into execution, and the very friendly and flattering attentions paid by Messieurs de Prevot des Marchands, et Echevins de Paris to them and to the character to which they desired to show their gratitude. It would enable us to do this with more exactness could I obtain copies of the proceedings which attended the inauguration of the bust. Your goodness, already so often manifested in this business, encourages me to endeavor to obtain these through your intervention. I do it the rather as it furnishes me an occasion very grateful to my feelings, of returning to you at the same time my sincere thanks for the zealwith which you have seconded the views of the State, the readiness with which you have condescended to give me information in the course of the proceedings, and to secure by your influence the success of these proceedings. This friendly assistance in the discharge of a public duty has added to the many motives of private esteem and attachment with which I have honor to be, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
Paris, October 20, 1786.
Sir,—By the first conveyance which shall offer, I propose to report to the Governor of Virginia the manner in which the wish of the State, relative to the bust of the Marquis de La Fayette, has been carried into execution, and the very friendly and flattering attentions paid by Messieurs de Prevot des Marchands, et Echevins de Paris to them and to the character to which they desired to show their gratitude. It would enable us to do this with more exactness could I obtain copies of the proceedings which attended the inauguration of the bust. Your goodness, already so often manifested in this business, encourages me to endeavor to obtain these through your intervention. I do it the rather as it furnishes me an occasion very grateful to my feelings, of returning to you at the same time my sincere thanks for the zealwith which you have seconded the views of the State, the readiness with which you have condescended to give me information in the course of the proceedings, and to secure by your influence the success of these proceedings. This friendly assistance in the discharge of a public duty has added to the many motives of private esteem and attachment with which I have honor to be, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO THE HONORABLE JOHN JAY.Paris, October 22, 1786.Sir,—In a letter of Jan. 2d, I had the honor of communicating to you the measures which had been pursued here for the improvement of the commerce between the United States and France, the general view of that commerce which I had presented to the Chevalier de Vergennes. The circumstance of the renewal of the forms which had obliged me to press separately and in the first place the article of tobacco, and that which had also brought forward that of whale oil; and, in my letters of May 27th and 31st, I informed you of the result on the first of these articles. During the course of the proceedings, a committee had been established for considering the means of promoting the general commerce with America, and the M. de La Fayette was named of that committee. His influence in obtaining that establishment was valuable, but his labors and his perseverance as a member of it became infinitely more so. Immediately after the committee of Berni, of which my letter of May 27th gave an account, we thought it expedient to bring the general subject of the American commerce before the committee; and as the members were much unacquainted with the nature and value of our commercial productions, the Marquis proposed that, in a letter to him as a member, I should give as particular details of them as I could, as a ground for the committee to proceed on. I did so in the letter, a copy of which I have now the honor to enclose.The committee were well disposed, and agreed to report, not only the general measures which they thought expedient to be adopted, but the form of the letter to be written by the minister of finance to me, for the communication of those measures. I have received this letter this morning and have now the honor to enclose it. I accompany it with the one proposed by the committee, of which you will perceive that it is almost a verbal copy; it furnished a proof of the disposition of the King and his ministers to produce a more intimate intercourse between the two nations. Indeed, I must say that, as far as I am able to see, the friendship of the people of this country towards us is cordial and general, and that it is a kind of security for the friendship of ministers who cannot in any country be uninfluenced by the voice of the people. To this we may add, that it is their interest, as well as ours, to multiply the bans of friendship between us. As the regulations stated in the minister's letter are immediately interesting to those concerned in our commerce, I send printed copies of it to the sea-port towns in France. We may consider them as an ultimate settlement of the conditions of our commerce with this country; for, though the consolidation of the ship duties, and the encouragements for the importation of rice are not finally decided, yet the letter contains a promise of them so soon as necessary facts shall be known. With a view to come at the facts relative to the two last subjects, I had proposed, whenever I should receive the final decision now enclosed, to avail myself of the pause which that would produce, in order to visit the sea-port towns with which we trade chiefly, and to collect that kind of knowledge of our commerce, and of what may be further useful to it, which can only be gathered on the spot, and suggested by one's own inspection. But the delay which has attended the obtaining the final determination has brought us to the entrance of winter, and will oblige me to postpone my journey to the spring. Besides the objects of public utility which induce me to make a tour of this land, that of health will oblige me to pay more attention to exercise and change of air than I have hitherto done since my residence in Europe; and I am willing to hope that I may be permitted attimes to absent myself from this place, taking occasions when there is nothing important on hand, nor likely to arise. The assistance of the M. de La Fayette in the whole of this business, has been so earnest and so efficacious, that I am in duty bound to place it under the eye of Congress, as worthy their notice on this occasion. Their thanks, or such other notice as they think proper, would be grateful to him without doubt. He has richly deserved and will continue to deserve it, whenever occasions shall arise of rendering service to the United States. These occasions will continually occur. Though the abolition of the monopoly of our tobacco cannot be hoped under the present circumstances, changes are possible which may open that hope again. However jealous, too, this country is of foreign intercourse with their colonies, that intercourse is too essential to us to be abandoned as desperate. At this moment, indeed, it cannot be proposed; but, by watching circumstances, occasion may arise hereafter; and I hope will arise. I know from experience what would, in that case, be the value of such an auxiliary.I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
Paris, October 22, 1786.
Sir,—In a letter of Jan. 2d, I had the honor of communicating to you the measures which had been pursued here for the improvement of the commerce between the United States and France, the general view of that commerce which I had presented to the Chevalier de Vergennes. The circumstance of the renewal of the forms which had obliged me to press separately and in the first place the article of tobacco, and that which had also brought forward that of whale oil; and, in my letters of May 27th and 31st, I informed you of the result on the first of these articles. During the course of the proceedings, a committee had been established for considering the means of promoting the general commerce with America, and the M. de La Fayette was named of that committee. His influence in obtaining that establishment was valuable, but his labors and his perseverance as a member of it became infinitely more so. Immediately after the committee of Berni, of which my letter of May 27th gave an account, we thought it expedient to bring the general subject of the American commerce before the committee; and as the members were much unacquainted with the nature and value of our commercial productions, the Marquis proposed that, in a letter to him as a member, I should give as particular details of them as I could, as a ground for the committee to proceed on. I did so in the letter, a copy of which I have now the honor to enclose.The committee were well disposed, and agreed to report, not only the general measures which they thought expedient to be adopted, but the form of the letter to be written by the minister of finance to me, for the communication of those measures. I have received this letter this morning and have now the honor to enclose it. I accompany it with the one proposed by the committee, of which you will perceive that it is almost a verbal copy; it furnished a proof of the disposition of the King and his ministers to produce a more intimate intercourse between the two nations. Indeed, I must say that, as far as I am able to see, the friendship of the people of this country towards us is cordial and general, and that it is a kind of security for the friendship of ministers who cannot in any country be uninfluenced by the voice of the people. To this we may add, that it is their interest, as well as ours, to multiply the bans of friendship between us. As the regulations stated in the minister's letter are immediately interesting to those concerned in our commerce, I send printed copies of it to the sea-port towns in France. We may consider them as an ultimate settlement of the conditions of our commerce with this country; for, though the consolidation of the ship duties, and the encouragements for the importation of rice are not finally decided, yet the letter contains a promise of them so soon as necessary facts shall be known. With a view to come at the facts relative to the two last subjects, I had proposed, whenever I should receive the final decision now enclosed, to avail myself of the pause which that would produce, in order to visit the sea-port towns with which we trade chiefly, and to collect that kind of knowledge of our commerce, and of what may be further useful to it, which can only be gathered on the spot, and suggested by one's own inspection. But the delay which has attended the obtaining the final determination has brought us to the entrance of winter, and will oblige me to postpone my journey to the spring. Besides the objects of public utility which induce me to make a tour of this land, that of health will oblige me to pay more attention to exercise and change of air than I have hitherto done since my residence in Europe; and I am willing to hope that I may be permitted attimes to absent myself from this place, taking occasions when there is nothing important on hand, nor likely to arise. The assistance of the M. de La Fayette in the whole of this business, has been so earnest and so efficacious, that I am in duty bound to place it under the eye of Congress, as worthy their notice on this occasion. Their thanks, or such other notice as they think proper, would be grateful to him without doubt. He has richly deserved and will continue to deserve it, whenever occasions shall arise of rendering service to the United States. These occasions will continually occur. Though the abolition of the monopoly of our tobacco cannot be hoped under the present circumstances, changes are possible which may open that hope again. However jealous, too, this country is of foreign intercourse with their colonies, that intercourse is too essential to us to be abandoned as desperate. At this moment, indeed, it cannot be proposed; but, by watching circumstances, occasion may arise hereafter; and I hope will arise. I know from experience what would, in that case, be the value of such an auxiliary.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO H. E. J. ADAMS.Paris,October 27, 1786.Dear Sir,—I formerly had the honor of mentioning to you the measures I had taken to have our commerce with this country put on a better footing, and you know the circumstances which had occasioned the articles of whale oil and tobacco to be first brought forward. Latterly we got the committee, which had been established for this purpose, to take up the other article, and on their report, the King and council have come to the decisions explained in the enclosed letter from M. de Calonnes[A]to me. The abandonment of revenue raised on articles ofimportationshows a friendly disposition. I have had, through this business, a most zealous and powerful auxiliary in the Marquis de La Fayette, by whose activity it has been sooner and better done than I could otherwise have possibly expected. Though you are free to show the enclosed letter as you please, I would wish it kept out of the public papers two or three months. I am, dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant.
Paris,October 27, 1786.
Dear Sir,—I formerly had the honor of mentioning to you the measures I had taken to have our commerce with this country put on a better footing, and you know the circumstances which had occasioned the articles of whale oil and tobacco to be first brought forward. Latterly we got the committee, which had been established for this purpose, to take up the other article, and on their report, the King and council have come to the decisions explained in the enclosed letter from M. de Calonnes[A]to me. The abandonment of revenue raised on articles ofimportationshows a friendly disposition. I have had, through this business, a most zealous and powerful auxiliary in the Marquis de La Fayette, by whose activity it has been sooner and better done than I could otherwise have possibly expected. Though you are free to show the enclosed letter as you please, I would wish it kept out of the public papers two or three months. I am, dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant.
TO DR. RAMSAY.Paris, October 27, 1786.Dear Sir,—I mentioned to you in a former letter that as the booksellers in London were afraid to sell your book there, I would have some copies brought here, advertising in the London papers that they could be furnished weekly from hence by the Diligence. Fifty copies are just arrived, and fifty more are on the way. The translation will come from the press in a few days.Having observed the immense consumption of rice in this country, it became matter of wonder to me why so few ships come here with that article from South Carolina and Georgia. The information I received on my first enquiries was, that little Carolina rice came here, because it was less clean and less good than what is brought from the Levant. Further enquiry, however, has satisfied me of the inexactitude of this information. The case is as follows. About one-half the rice consumed in France is from Carolina, the other half is chiefly from Piedmont. The Piedmont rice is thought by connoisseurs to be the bestau gras; the Carolina rice bestau lait. Yet the superior whiteness of the latter is so much more pleasing to the eye as to compensate with many purchasers its deficiency in quality. Carolina rice sells at Havre by wholesale at 22, 23, 24 livres the French quintal; the livre being 10d.sterling, and the French quintal 109 lbs. English. At the approach of Lent, it rises to 27 livres. It is retailed in Paris at from 6 to 10 sous the French pound, according to its quality, being sorted. Piedmont rice sells alwaysat 10 sous (5d.sterling) the pound. In the wholesale it is 3 or 4 livres the quintal dearer than Carolina rice. This would supplant that of Piedmont, if brought in sufficient quantities, and to France directly. But it is first carried and deposited in England, and it is the merchant of that country who sends it here, drawing a great profit himself, while the commodity is, moreover, subjected to the expenses of a double voyage. You will perceive by the enclosed letter that the government here is disposed to encourage its importation. I think they will receive it duty free, or under very slight duty, barely sufficient to indicate the quantity imported. When I compared the price of this article here with what it is in London or Charleston, I cannot help hoping the difference will be sufficient to draw to this country immediately what its consumption would call for. It must come to Havre or Rouen, and must arrive there in time to reach Paris by the 1st of February, that is to say a month before the Careme, as most persons lay in their provision of rice during that period. This condition is so indispensable that it certainly loses its sale if it arrives later. I send you some specimens of the different kinds of rice as sold here. If, by making known these details, you think the intercourse between our country and this may be improved, I am sure you will take on yourself the trouble of doing it; nobody being more sensible than you are of the motives both moral and political which should induce us to bind the two countries together by as many ties as possible of interest and affection. I cannot pretend to affirm that this country will stand by us on every just occasion, but I am sure, if this will not, there is no other that will. I am, with very great esteem, dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
Paris, October 27, 1786.
Dear Sir,—I mentioned to you in a former letter that as the booksellers in London were afraid to sell your book there, I would have some copies brought here, advertising in the London papers that they could be furnished weekly from hence by the Diligence. Fifty copies are just arrived, and fifty more are on the way. The translation will come from the press in a few days.
Having observed the immense consumption of rice in this country, it became matter of wonder to me why so few ships come here with that article from South Carolina and Georgia. The information I received on my first enquiries was, that little Carolina rice came here, because it was less clean and less good than what is brought from the Levant. Further enquiry, however, has satisfied me of the inexactitude of this information. The case is as follows. About one-half the rice consumed in France is from Carolina, the other half is chiefly from Piedmont. The Piedmont rice is thought by connoisseurs to be the bestau gras; the Carolina rice bestau lait. Yet the superior whiteness of the latter is so much more pleasing to the eye as to compensate with many purchasers its deficiency in quality. Carolina rice sells at Havre by wholesale at 22, 23, 24 livres the French quintal; the livre being 10d.sterling, and the French quintal 109 lbs. English. At the approach of Lent, it rises to 27 livres. It is retailed in Paris at from 6 to 10 sous the French pound, according to its quality, being sorted. Piedmont rice sells alwaysat 10 sous (5d.sterling) the pound. In the wholesale it is 3 or 4 livres the quintal dearer than Carolina rice. This would supplant that of Piedmont, if brought in sufficient quantities, and to France directly. But it is first carried and deposited in England, and it is the merchant of that country who sends it here, drawing a great profit himself, while the commodity is, moreover, subjected to the expenses of a double voyage. You will perceive by the enclosed letter that the government here is disposed to encourage its importation. I think they will receive it duty free, or under very slight duty, barely sufficient to indicate the quantity imported. When I compared the price of this article here with what it is in London or Charleston, I cannot help hoping the difference will be sufficient to draw to this country immediately what its consumption would call for. It must come to Havre or Rouen, and must arrive there in time to reach Paris by the 1st of February, that is to say a month before the Careme, as most persons lay in their provision of rice during that period. This condition is so indispensable that it certainly loses its sale if it arrives later. I send you some specimens of the different kinds of rice as sold here. If, by making known these details, you think the intercourse between our country and this may be improved, I am sure you will take on yourself the trouble of doing it; nobody being more sensible than you are of the motives both moral and political which should induce us to bind the two countries together by as many ties as possible of interest and affection. I cannot pretend to affirm that this country will stand by us on every just occasion, but I am sure, if this will not, there is no other that will. I am, with very great esteem, dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.